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"Ballooning" Spiders Use Electrostatic Forces To Generate Lift
KentuckyFC writes "Many types of small spider release threads into the air which then lift and carry them significant distances. Biologists have found them at altitudes of up to 4 km. The conventional thinking is that the threads catch thermal air currents which then carry them away but this does not explain how spiders perform their trick even when there is little or no wind. Now one physicist says the explanation is the atmosphere's natural electric field which has an average downward-pointing magnitude of 120 Volts per metre. He calculates that a strand of silk need only gain a negative charge of around 30 nanoCoulombs to lift a spider. That explains how the spiders take off on windless days, how they reach such great heights and how several strands can lift heavier spiders of up to 100 milligrams."
It's a shame that they ruin it with that - the rest of the story is totally plausible.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
This really bugs me.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Sigh! Spiderman's webs attach to skyscrapers, streetlights, bridges and the like. That's why you never see him swinging around in the suburbs. Spiderman only fights crimes downtown.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
The sky webs read "crispy bacon". Poor Wilbur.
You're trying to work out continuity issues from an old and poorly made no budget ancient cartoon? :)
You might as well complain that dropping an anvil on sombody's head will not result in a bump but will crush their freaking skull and kill them.
Besides, Spiderman doesn't do web flight. He must not have been bit by a gossamer spider.